All-Out Cyberwar is Going On in the Dark, Pentagon Increasing Cybersec Teams

Could there be a “cyber 9/11”? Would there be an all-out cyberwar happening right now? There is a war going on, a cyber one at that, going on here in the states. If you work for a defense contractor, bank, train and plane transportation providers (also including RTAs and other digitally-depending transportation methods), power company, water and utilities plants, etc. are in direct line of fire of potential cyberwar problems.

A brewing cyberwar has been going on in the past year, and usually people view it as governments going head to head (like it would in actual wars). However, there is more of a cyberwar against governments, corporations, and of course the entities we named above.

With seeing government threats, like Stuxnet, Flame, etc., to cybercrime units like Red October, Rustock, even Virut/Waledec – seems like the threat is getting out of hand. With the use of tactics like from these malware powerhouses, our worry for a severe (life-threatening) attack should be a lot greater…mainly to the fact that the US should seriously prepare itself.

“The cyber war has been under way in the private sector for the past year,” says Israel Martinez, a board member of the U.S. National Cyber Security Council, a nonprofit group composed of federal government and private sector executives.

“We’re finding espionage, advanced persistent threats (APTs), and other malware sitting in networks, often for more than a year before it’s ever detected,” Martinez says.

Martinez studies different issues, such as US entities being targeted by fronts from China, Iran for intellectual property theft to other cybercrimes such as stealing identities or cash.

When we look at Stuxnet for example, the US and Israel crafted it jointly to disrupt Iranian nuclear facilities. Problem here is, doing that may have just been a provoking edge to the cybcerwar for Iran to develop something else and revenge. Doing this caused Iran then, to strike back with cyber attacks on US banks. Some have thought Iran was behind the Shamoon virus as well, which wipes out 30K hard drives and taking computers offline at Saudi Aramco for several weeks.

Defense firms in the US are hoping that some of the Fortune 500 cybersecurity companies have a good plan to counterattack and defend for the US to these opponents.

The Pentagon has come back with newer accounts of management for this cyberwar by planning to increase cybersecurity teams. The Senate is continually pushing for legislation for information sharing on threats and cyber attacks. President Obama prepares to issue executive order on cybersecurity, so the Department of Defense is looking for a massive increase in the number of trained cybersecurity personnel helping to defend our country’s public and even private networks.

The government has had trouble in the past looking for the right personnel, since most are employed by agencies that don’t discuss operations publicly (due to the risk of the information getting in to the wrong hands). The Pentagon is planning to push up the number of security professionals up to 5,000 in the next few years (which is up from a little under 1,000). They’re hoping for both military and civilian security personnel to join up, so the diversity helps the US prepare for any issue.

Expect a better take charge situation by corporate, government, and private firms in this cyberwar situation!